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tion and policy of the country which enables you to get the volunteers. Mr. JOHNSON. That is what we all hope.

Mr. DURHAM. Mr. Clark, to sum up, under that interpretation you are telling us that there would not be any misplacement, there would not be any of these large groups transferred from one section of the country to the other. I am very much of the same opinion that you are-if that is your opinion.

Mr. CLARK. Í may not have expressed myself clearly at all. I think there has got to be a vast allocation of workers in this country to win this war.

Mr. DURHAM. In large groups.

Mr. CLARK. No; it is a problem in detail. I think before we get through we will have to have hundreds of thousands of more workers in the shipyards.

Mr. DURHAM. That is true.

Mr. CLARK. And hundreds of thousands more in the plane factories. Mr. DURHAM. But if we make a survey, for instance, as given here this morning in regard to Baltimore over here, where there are 370,000 people that can be placed there without taking 10,000 people from one county and putting them in Baltimore, that should be done.

Mr. CLARK. I agree with you. I think once you have such a law, you don't have to

Mr. DURHAM (interposing). I think you are going to find them back in the home communities.

Mr. CLARK. I am not talking about moving tens of thousands or millions of people around the country. That is quite unnecessary. I am talking about providing the executive departments of the Government with the underlying sanction and the tool whereby they can effectively get the labor into the factories and into the right places, all of which is almost entirely a local problem.

Mr. DURHAM. I think that is one of the bugaboos that the people have got in mind; that you are going to pick up everybody and ship them off somewhere.

Mr. CLARK. Yes, they have; but there isn't any sense to it. It was the same with the Selective Service Act. At one time in the debate on the Selective Service Act-the mail was running 20 to 1 against it, and it didn't have a chance. Why? Because I think the German propagandists had spread over the country that it was going to be used to break up every home in the country in an arbitrary manner, and it scared the people to death. And it is a bugaboo. The only answer to it is to explain carefully and patiently that that isn't the way it works. Mr. DURHAM. They are trying to use that against this legislation? Mr. CLARK. Oh, yes; a tremendous propaganda.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Clark, don't you think that the administering of this law will be vastly more difficult, more complicated than Selective Service?

Mr. CLARK. I don't think so. I think it will work very nicely and smoothly.

Mr. JOHNSON. For instance, in the book that is issued to the Selective Service groups, there were over 40,000 classifications of different types of work.

Mr. CLARK. I am not troubled by that. I go back to my North Carolina example. There was a case where if that man had had this law

under him he could have gotten the men for those shipyards and to build those barracks, and without the law he could not. And he would not have had to issue a single order.

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you think that the Selective Service boards, as manifested by their experience now of almost 2 years, have really got the courage to do the right thing?

Mr. CLARK. Yes; I believe in them. I think they are the finest lot of men we have in the country.

Mr. JOHNSON. You think they would take a lawyer making five or ten thousand dollars a year and put him in a clerical job if he was needed?

Mr. CLARK. I have got confidence in those local boards, and I think the people have, but this bill provides, as you know, in section 3 (a) [reading]:

Provided, That in order to aid the local boards of the Selective Service in performing the additional duties required of them under this Act, the President may assign to such local boards in an advisory capacity representatives of such other agencies of the Government as he may deem advisable.

In other words, they will have expert help there to pick out the hard-rock miners and so on. But when it comes to final judgment, I think the neighbors ought to say who should go.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions?

We thank you, Mr. Clark.

Mr. CLARK. You have been very patient and very kind, gentlemen. The CHAIRMAN. You have been very patient and very kind, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 5 p. m., the committee adjourned until 10 a. m., Thursday, April 15, 1943.)

FULL UTILIZATION OF MANPOWER

THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1943

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Andrew J. May (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please be in order.

We will continue the hearings on the bills H. R. 2239, H. R. 1743, H. R. 1728, and H. R. 1992.

We are to hear the representatives of the foremen's organization from Pittsburgh today. I believe that Mr. Krimsly is the general counsel for the Mine Officials' Union of America. Mr. Krimsly? Is he in the room? Do you represent these gentlemen?

Mr. KRIMSLY. Yes, sir. I would like at this time to introduce Mr. John McAlpine. Mr. John McAlpine is the president of the Mine Officials' Union of America and he will in his own way deliver his testimony to you.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, sir. Thank you very much.
We will hear you, Mr. McAlpine.

STATEMENT OF JOHN MCALPINE, PRESIDENT, MINE OFFICIALS UNION OF AMERICA

Mr. MCALPINE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am John McAlpine, of Pittsburgh. I am appearing in front of this body as president of the Mine Officials' Union of America. I want to tell you of some of the facts that led up to this organization. I want to tell you the reason why this organization was formed. And I will go on in my own way because I am only a coal miner and I am not going to come up here and use any words that you have to look in the dictionary to get the meaning of, because I do not use those kinds of words. I am going to tell you in just plain coal-mining language.

Our organization is a little better than 22 years old. It was started in December of 1940 and I will tell you the reason why it was formed. I work for the Ford Collieries Co., which is a subsidiary of the Michigan Alkali Co., and I acted in the role of a supervisory employee, better known as a fire boss, in this mine.

Up to December 1940 we worked or were on a salary and were paid by the company once a month. My salary as a fire boss was $230 a month. On the 29th day of November of that year, when I came out from work, the superintendent of the mine was there and he called us in to what he called an informal meeting.

FULL UTILIZATION OF MANPOWER

Mr. THOMASON. What is the name of your employer?
Mr. MCALPINE. The Ford Collieries Co.

Mr. THOMASON. Where is it?

Mr. MCALPINE. Curtisville, Pa.

Mr. THOMASON. They are the operators of the mine?
Mr. MCALPINE. Yes.

Mr. THOMASON. What is the name of your organization?
Mr. MCALPINE. The Mine Officials' Union of America.
Mr. THOMASON. The Mine Officials' Union?

Mr. MCALPINE. Yes; the Mine Officials' Union of America.

So when he called us into this meeting he said, "Boys, I have some bad news for you."

Mr. THOMASON. Pardon me. Who called you in?

Mr. MCALPINE. The superintendent of the mine.

He said that "Due to the Roosevelt prosperity we no longer can keep you boys on by the month."

Mr. ARENDS. Whose prosperity?

Mr. MCALPINE. Roosevelt prosperity.

"But

He said, "We are no longer able to keep you on by the month," and he said, "From now on we are going to pay you on a day rate." he said, "Before I tell you about this day rate I am going to give you a little bit of more cheerful news." He said, "You know, we never considered you men management and from now on the only men we are going to keep on by the month are those men we consider management."

So the question arose as to who was just management and he definitely said who he considered management and that made three men around the entire mine. He said to me "I am going to come back to the bad news. Starting the first of December the fire bosses get $8 a day and only work when the mine works." We had to do it. There was no other course we could use. So the first pay after that I received $22.05 for 2 weeks' work.

Now, some of the coal operators call us executives or managers. Well, if that is the pay of executives or managers, why, it is just too bad for management.

Now, I have a statement here proving that and it is signed by the coal company.

Mr. THOMASON. Pardon me. Were you a foreman?

Mr. MCALPINE. I was a supervisory employee known as fire boss.
Mr. THOMASON. A fire boss?

Mr. MCALPINE. That is right. So after taking this on the chin for quite a while we determined among ourselves to hold a meeting. Mr. ARENDS. When you say "we" how many were there, approximately?

Mr. MCALPINE. Approximately at that mine 22 men.
Mr. ARENDS. Twenty-two men?

Mr. MCALPINE. Yes.

Mr. THOMASON. Were they all foremen or fire bosses?

Mr. MCALPINE. Fire bosses, weight bosses, foremen, coal inspectors, supervisory employees of the mine. They appointed me chairman of that meeting. We did not meet very long but we came to one

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